‘Great expectations’: Do interpreted job interviews affect the employability opportunities of Deaf candidates?
Sarah Bown (UK) – Senior Lecturer Interpreting: (British Sign Language/English) & Deaf Studies. Contact: s.bown@wlv.ac.uk
Kristiaan Dekesel (UK) – Principal Lecturer Interpreting: (British Sign Language/English) & Deaf Studies. Contact: k.dekesel@wlv.ac.uk
Department of Social Science, Inclusion and Public Protection, Faculty of
Social Sciences, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Trotter argues that:
“The labour market is a challenging place for disabled people. The difficulties faced by everyone … are exacerbated by the additional barriers disabled people face.” (2013:35).
This webinar will explore the potential barriers, that can be identified when using a sign language interpreter during an employment interview process. Within this extensive study, two stakeholder groups, namely, Deaf interviewees and Sign language interpreters were interviewed in depth, about their personal experiences and the challenges they faced during the interview process. The latter also interpreted a simulated real-time employment interview, in order to monitor and evaluate the participation of a sign language interpreter in the setting.
A third stakeholder group namely interview panel members, were consulted as to their perceptions of, and the decisions they made, concerning the Deaf candidate, when faced with a sign language interpreter mediated employment interview. This was conducted via a matched-guise technique variant (Lambert et.al. 1960), where several sign language interpreters voiced over a single Deaf candidate.
The webinar will look at whether:
a. The prosodic features of sign language interpreters have the potential to
influence the selection decisions made by interview panels?
b. Translation decisions and the alignment utilised by sign language
interpreters, impact upon a Deaf interviewees chances of successful
selection?
c. The training of sign language interpreters can be enhanced, to improve
the experiences for all stakeholders, within interviews involving Deaf
participants?
d. There is a need to establish guidelines in this specific domain for all
stakeholder groups
Webinar delivery: Spoken English with BSL Interpretation. There will be a task based activity during this webinar.
Ethical approval: Faculty of Social Science, University of Wolverhampton, UK
ID:112030.
Funded by: Faculty of Social Science, University of Wolverhampton, UK; Bown S. and Dekesel K.
Biography
Sarah Bown:
Senior Lecturer for the B.A (Hons) Interpreting: BSL/English programme at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. Her professional expertise spans over three decades incorporating: interpreting, Higher education of interpreters, research, management of interpreting services, and extensive experience of service delivery and training within private, public and charitable sectors. She was the Interpreting Course Leader between 1999-2016, and professional activity also includes; member of the efsli Committee of Experts, Higher Education Academy Senior Fellow & Academic Associate,
QCF Assessor/Verifier, NRCPD Standards Officer and was nominated and chosen for the University’s Vice Chancellor’s award for recognition of teaching innovation and excellence.
Kristiaan Dekesel:
Principal Lecturer for the B.A (Hons) Interpreting: (BSL/English) at the University of Wolverhampton, UK and Head of Undergraduate recruitment for the Faculty of Social Sciences. He has been involved in the training of interpreters for nearly three decades. Kristiaan has been instrumental in the curriculum design and innovation of undergraduate programmes in Higher Education and has actively campaigned for the access to BSL as a national curriculum subject in the education system for both deaf
and hearing children. He is one of only a handful of sign linguists in the UK.
Note: this webinar will not be recorded so will not be available to access after the session.
